Does President Obama Care About The Law?

“A recurring criticism of the Obama Administration is that it has embraced an inflated notion of executive power and disregarded legal constraints on executive-branch actions.”  So writes Case Western University law professor Jonathan Adler on a post at The Volokh Conspiracy.  His post describes an article by another author, Charlie Savage, that tests the validity of that criticism by citing eight examples in which the Obama Administration did not do something it really wanted to do because the law stood in the way:

1. Not closing Guantanamo
2. Not bombing the Bin Laden compound
3. Not keeping Daqduq in American custody
4. Not targeting al-Farekh
5. Revealing, at last, the role of warrantless surveillance in evidence presented in certain criminal cases
6. Not unilaterally bombing Syrian forces for using chemical weapons
7. Continuing to enforce DOMA
8. Not including parents of ‘Dreamers’ in DAPA

I commend Adler’s post to readers (particularly my conservative friends who love to bash President Obama for alleged executive power overreach).